A senior US air force officer says Britain’s new stealth jet may be no better than existing aircraft.

Britain’s long-delayed $117 million stealth fighter may need to be cancelled because of its poor performance, according to analysis by a senior US Air Force officer.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being built for British and US forces is based on outdated ideas of air warfare, it is claimed. The aircraft could be unable to evade enemy radar and be too expensive for long campaigns.

The critique in the US Air Force’s own journal concludes that the new fighter may even have “substantially less performance” than some existing aircraft.

Britain is preparing to buy at least 48 of the Lockheed Martin aircraft to replace its scrapped Harrier jump jets; the US military is expected to order more than 2,400.

The $395 billion programme is the most expensive weapons system in history at a time when defence budgets on both sides of the Atlantic are being cut.

Phi Beta Iota: A long-haul Air Force would cost a fraction of these two monstrocities, each an epic example of fraud, waste, and abuse. We continue to believe that the President’s objective of reducing defense expenditures by 30% is necessary and healthy — and we can still create a 450-ship Navy, long-haul Air Force, and air-mobile Army….and transfer the Close Air Support (CAS) mission to the Army where it can be treated with the seriousness the Air Force lacks.